Abstract—Upon the mineralogical researches on the jade
from China in 1846 and 1863, Damour, a French mineralogist,
discovered two mineral components of the jade and named them
as “nephrite” and “jadeite”. Then Japanese scholars introduced
his research results to Japan and translated “nephrite” and
“jadeite” into Nefuraito( “Ruan Yu”) and Kōgyoku ( “Ying
Yu”) in Japanese according to their small difference in mohs'
hardness. Then at the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese
scholars cited their Japanese translations and transferred them
into “Ruan Yu” and “Ying Yu” in Chinese. This makes people
always mistakenly think the two names are their Chinese
translations and they have been used in various formal occasions,
which leads to unnecessary misunderstandings and exerts a
certain negative effect on the development of China’s jade
industry. Looking into the original meanings of “nephrite” and
“jadeite” created by Damour, author thinks it is more
appropriate to translate “nephrite” and “jadeite” into “Yushan
Shi” and “Yuhui Shi” in Chinese.
Index Terms—Nephrite, jadeite, Chinese translation, Yushan
Shi, Yuhui Shi.
The authors are with the Gemmological Institute, China University of
Geosciences (GIC), Wuhan, 430074, P.R. China (e-mail: lilili29@sina.com,
yxq1014@126.com).
Cite: Lili Zhang and Xinqiang Yuan, "Discussion on Accurate Chinese Translations of “Nephrite” and “Jadeite”," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 7, no. 9, pp. 707-711, 2017.